Things that make me feel unreasonably accomplished. A list.

• When I successfully hand- or machine-wash an article of clothing labeled Dry Clean Only, saving on present and future dry-cleaning bills.
• When I schedule a haircut, dental appointment or other nagging, grown-up life admin item.
• When I return all my library books on time.
• When I keep a plant alive through the winter.
• When I put together an outfit of which my fashionista sister and mother would be proud. (This often involves at least one piece of clothing or jewelry given to me by one of them.)
• When I have a successful phone conversation with someone I don’t know. (There are few things I dread more. Sometimes I actually pray for people not to answer the phone.)
• When I pull off a new, complicated recipe or knitting pattern.
• When I finish a difficult book.
• When I send off a well-written book review. (Extra points if it’s a review of a difficult book.)
• When I successfully navigate a new city, particularly if I do it by instinct.
• When I buy a gift for someone and they love it.

What makes you feel absurdly, disproportionately, proudly accomplished?

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How I know it’s spring

The temperatures are slowly rising. The skies are losing the cloud-streaked pallor of winter, giving way on some days to a bold, nearly electric blue. The crocuses are out in full force; the trees are budding; the rhubarb and asparagus are out at the grocery store. On my lunchtime walks, the earthy tang of mulch hangs in the air. I even spotted a rabbit in Harvard Square last week.

And I’m feeling homesick for the mountains of northern New Mexico.

Eight years ago, after two semesters fraught with loss, I packed my car with a sleeping bag, pillow, a few books and two weeks’ worth of jeans and T-shirts, and headed west across the Texas plains. I drove past my hometown, crossed the New Mexico border, then wound down a long grey highway bordered with scrub and cacti, then with pine, shadowed in the distance by mesas. I was heading for a camp tucked into a valley under the Sangre de Cristo mountains, where I had signed up for a writing workshop with a former English professor who now ran the camp.

For two weeks, we lived out of cell phone range, hiking and writing and reading each other’s work, sharing meals at a long narrow table in the dining hall. I spent hours walking around the camp alone, inhaling the scent of sun on dried pine needles and the sharp, crisp mountain air. I laughed as Jake, the resident golden retriever, bounded into the river and out again, shaking himself dry, wiggling head to toe with joy. In the late afternoons I stretched out on the wooden porch of the old dining hall, with my journal and a bottle of water, eating M&Ms and writing poetry, soaking up the sunshine and the quiet.

We read Wendell Berry and William Stafford, and I spent a Sunday afternoon sitting in the doorway of the laundry room, reading Kathleen Norris and listening to the rain. Sometimes Scott, the director, would pull out his guitar and share one of the songs he was writing. His words, and the words of these other writers, are bound up with the long hikes and the bowls of hot vegetable stew, and the moments at night when I crossed the short distance from the cabin to the shower house, and paused to look up at the indigo sky pierced with stars.

I did not solve my problems, nor completely jettison my worry and grief, during those weeks spent so far away from my usual life. But I began to imagine what renewal might look like. I began to believe, after a year of struggle and loss, that I could move forward with peace and steadiness, drawn somehow from the quiet strength of the mountains and hills. I discovered, again, the ability of words to help work through the sorrows we can’t explain, and I knew the deep joy of talking about words with people who also believed in their power.

Every spring, when the air begins to soften and the sky turns toward the vast, jarring blue of early summer, when the life that has lain dormant all winter under the earth begins to quicken, I long to pack up my car again and head for that valley. My soul aches for the deep quiet of those afternoons on the porch and the camaraderie of evenings around the campfire. My ears strain to hear the sound of Scott’s guitar. My whole being remembers, and for a few moments, I am back there in the mountains, where my soul found rest.

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Poetry Friday: Messenger

April is National Poetry Month, and I love a good poem. So on Fridays this month, I’ll be bringing you a few of my favorites. (Here are some poetry posts from last April.)

Messenger

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

—Mary Oliver

I also read more poetry than usual during Poetry Month. This year, that means dipping into Caroline Kennedy’s anthology She Walks in Beauty, eyeing David Whyte’s The House of Belonging, and revisiting favorites by Collins, Frost, Dickinson and others.

What poems do you love? Who are your favorite poets?

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March reading roundup #1

Shades of Grey, Jasper Fforde
Fforde departs from his ingenious Thursday Next series (which I love) to create the Colorworld, where a person’s color perception determines their social standing, career path and marriage prospects. Eddie Russett, a highly color-perceptive Red, travels to the Outer Fringes, where the local swatchman (healer) has mysteriously died, and powerful Yellows and Purples are hiding a number of secrets. The plot is wacky and inventive, if sometimes confusing, and I liked Jane and Eddie (though he’s a bit weak-willed). Good fun.

Mourn Not Your Dead, Deborah Crombie
Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James return for a fourth case, investigating the murder of a high-ranking but unpopular Scotland Yard official. Interviewing the man’s family and neighbors, they discover a string of thefts in his village and an intricate web of relationships. Who might be lying to protect whom? And after a disarming encounter (in the previous book), can Duncan and Gemma repair their personal and professional relationship? An intriguing mystery, with a hefty dose of personal tension.

Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction, Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd
Kidder and Todd have a long-standing writer/editor relationship, and they team up to offer sound advice on writing nonfiction (and not a few ramblings about their experiences). Some great lines (I tweeted a few), and a dozen or so nods to Boston (which I appreciated). But this is less a prescriptive book on writing well than a meditation on the interplay between writer and editor. Still well written and worthwhile.

Dreaming of the Bones, Deborah Crombie
Duncan Kincaid (see above) fields an unusual call from his ex-wife: she’s writing a biography of a recently dead poet, and is no longer convinced the poet’s death was a suicide. Kincaid decides to investigate, which leaves his sergeant/new girlfriend, Gemma, feeling miffed but intrigued. Leagues better than the previous books in the series: more tightly plotted, better written, more emotionally satisfying (though quite sad in parts). And it contains a lovely meditation on Cambridge which resonated deeply with me.

The Third Son, Julie Wu
Saburo, the neglected third son of a Taiwanese family, meets a mysterious girl named Yoshiko during a bombing raid in 1943. As he works his way through school, dreaming of being an engineer, he doesn’t see her for years – until he discovers she’s dating his brother. Although they find happiness together, Saburo must go to America to pursue his career: will he and Yoshiko ever have the life they dream of? Beautifully written, heavy with questions about familial duty, responsibility, and the consequences of our actions for those we love. To review for Shelf Awareness (out April 30).

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Winifred Watson
I picked up this slim novel at Book Culture in NYC. I saw the charming film a while back, but had never read the book. And I loved it. Miss Pettigrew, a down-on-her-luck, fortyish governess, seeks employment and is mistakenly sent to the flat of a bright, flighty young woman who sweeps Miss Pettigrew up in her whirlwind of suitors, perfume and nightclubs. This dazzling day changes Miss Pettigrew’s life. Utterly charming – witty, sparkling, hilarious – with some lovely tender moments. Wonderful.

This post contains IndieBound affiliate links.

What are you reading?

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29 things before I turn 30, update #2

Every year I make a list of things to do before my next birthday, from the fun to the profound, and post periodic updates. Items completed are crossed off; items begun are starred.*

1. Go back to Europe. Specifically Oxford (where I used to live).
2. Read or donate at least half the books I own that I’ve not yet read.* (Working on it, though the stacks grow constantly.)
3. Go back to the Glen Workshop.* (Signed up and making plans.)
4. Visit my loved ones in Abilene. (Loved being there over Christmas.)
5. Finish a draft of that memoir I keep talking about.
6. Pay off my student loans.* (Nearly there…)
7. Go apple picking for the third time. (It was glorious.)
8. Visit a place I’ve never been. (Newport, RI)
9. Read 10 new-to-me classics of any genre.* So far, I’ve read seven.
10. Participate in a cooking challenge with fellow Shelf Awareness reviewers. (Read all about it!)
11. Visit New York in the fall. (A weekend full of wonder.)
12. Cuddle that sweet nephew of mine a lot.* (Made a good start over Christmas, and planning to go back in March.)
13. Conquer the snooze button.*
14. Knit a few beautiful things.*
15. Go to the dentist.
16. Visit Canada, as we’re only a few hours away. (Making plans.)
17. Reach out to two friends every week.* (Continuing to do this.)
18. Reread the Mother-Daughter Book Club series. See my post about these books.
19. Take a vacation with friends.
20. Try 2 or more new recipes a month.*
21. Develop a steady, focused routine for my workdays: less frantic multitasking.*
22. Reimagine our cluttered guest room.* Lots of filing and clearing out over New Year’s.
23. Invest in sturdy, chic black flats.
24. Eat at the food truck on the Common. Love their breakfast granola, apple cider and rosemary fries.
25. Get a pedicure.
26. Invite friends over at least once a month.* Most recently, for four birthdays.
27. Write half a dozen more essays.* (See my second piece at Art House America.)
28. Order myself a new “brave” necklace.
29. Savor the last year of my twenties.*

What lists are you working on lately?

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Satisfaction and success

When we would talk about our future in private, I would ask Mark if he really thought we had a chance. Of course we had a chance, he’d say, and anyway, it didn’t matter if this venture failed. In his view, we were already a success, because we were doing something hard and it was something that mattered to us. You don’t measure things like that with words like success or failure, he said. Satisfaction comes from trying hard things and then going on to the next hard thing, regardless of the outcome. What mattered was whether or not you were moving in a direction you thought was right. This sounded extremely fishy to me.

—Kristin Kimball, The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food, and Love (bold emphasis mine)

I’ve been thinking about these words since I read them in Kimball’s memoir about building a farm from scratch in upstate New York, with the man who is now her husband.

Before they met, Kristin was a New York writer, with a closetful of high heels, an apartment in the East Village and a fast-paced, urban life. When she met Mark, it was nearly love at first sight – but it still took great courage (and not a little blind faith) for her to pull up stakes and move to the boondocks with this energetic, low-tech, handsome, stubborn farmer.

Her memoir gives the gory details of their first year of farming: watching a cow give birth, finding kittens dead in the barnyard after a weasel sneaked in, all sorts of weather- and equipment-related disasters. But the book is also suffused with joy: the sheer and simple joy of creating a home, out of dirt and seeds and tools and hard work.

Although Kristin freely admitted her doubts, she gradually came to believe that this difficult, exhausting, bone-wearying project they’d taken on would be worth it in the end. More: she came to believe it was worth it in the present. Even as they ran into setback after setback, she had never been more fulfilled in her life, or believed more deeply in anything she’d undertaken.

These days, I have a hard time believing in Mark’s recipe for satisfaction. Regular life – commuting and working, grocery shopping, surviving another Boston winter, keeping in touch with friends and family, finding time to spend with my husband – seems to take a monumental effort. At the end of the day, I rarely have enough energy left over to write, or to do anything creative and fulfilling. I spend a lot of time wishing things were easier, simpler. I am dreaming daily of hopping a plane to Oxford or Paris, or the more humble plains of West Texas. Escaping my life, instead of digging into it.

But Kristin’s words, and recent posts from Addie about “the messy middle” and Sarah about finding wisdom in the everyday, are nudging me to reconsider. To try the hard things, again and again, even if they’re as mundane as getting up in the morning, dealing with paperwork and unanswered emails, or as intimidating as doing some real writing, the kind I’ve been avoiding for weeks now.

I don’t want to spend my life spinning my wheels, or avoiding the hard things because they’re hard. I want to try them, even if – or when – I sometimes fail. I want to be brave, and keep showing up for my life. Even when I’d rather be anywhere else.

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Poem for winter

Walking Home from Oak-Head
by Mary Oliver

There is something
about the snow-laden sky
in winter
in the late afternoon

that brings to the heart elation
and the lovely meaninglessness
of time.
Whenever I get home — whenever —

somebody loves me there.
Meanwhile
I stand in the same dark peace
as any pine tree,

or wander on slowly
like the still unhurried wind,
waiting,
as for a gift,

for the snow to begin
which it does
at first casually,
then, irrepressibly.

Wherever else I live —
in music, in words,
in the fires of the heart,
I abide just as deeply

in this nameless, indivisible place,
this world,
which is falling apart now,
which is white and wild,

which is faithful beyond all our expressions of faith,
our deepest prayers.
Don’t worry, sooner or later I’ll be home.
Red-cheeked from the roused wind,

I’ll stand in the doorway
stamping my boots and slapping my hands,
my shoulders
covered with stars.

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one little word 2013: Attention

Hello, friends. Happy New Year. I hope your holidays, however you celebrated, have been merry and bright.

For the last few Decembers, I’ve spent time choosing (or discovering) a word to guide me through the year to come. Sometimes, like this year, that word gets a bit lost in the continuing shuffle of my daily routine, of commutes and obligations and books and social media. (I am learning not to beat myself up when this happens.)

Some words, as with my 2010 word, “brave,” resonate through my life like a deep gong, providing a key and a touchstone for many experiences. (I still wear the word “brave” around my neck.) And sometimes, as with my 2011 word (“comfort”), the result falls somewhere in between.

My word for 2013 came from three different books which pointed up a continuing need in my life: the need to be present, to stop walking through life distracted, to wish or plan or dream away the moments that are happening now. The first passage is one I read years ago, from Lauren Winner’s book Mudhouse Sabbath, and it has remained in my heart ever since:

You don’t find candles lit in frenetic houses; you find them lit in houses where people are trying to pay attention.

 

This summer, before taking a writing workshop with Lauren at the Glen, I read her latest book, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis, and was stunned by this passage:

Five years after her funeral, it is as if my mother has reached up from the grave and pulled my head, held my head the way a person holds a cat by the scruff of the neck, and said: There; look there. [...]

I want her to know that I am trying. I am trying to pay attention. I am trying to look.

And finally, Barbara Brown Taylor spoke eloquently to the value of attention in our everyday lives:

What is saving my life now is the conviction that there is no spiritual treasure to be found apart from the bodily experiences of human life on earth. My life depends on engaging the most ordinary physical activities with the most exquisite attention I can give them.

—An Altar in the World

I know that attention is not a magic cure: some days will still be mundane or dark or difficult, even when I give them my full attention. But I believe attention garners rich rewards when we make it a practice: we notice flashes of light, literal and metaphorical, that we might miss otherwise. I live in a city and a culture where everyone is often most focused on themselves and their own problems. What would happen, I wonder, if I turned some of my attention outward, to the people and places and things among whom I walk?

This year, I intend to find out.

I want more wonder in my life, more quiet focus, more moments when I am aware of being fully present to the here and now. Less distraction, and greater clarity. I am hoping to gain some of all these things by paying attention.

Do you, or have you, chosen a word for the year? If you have, I’d love to hear about it.

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In 2012 I have…

• survived my second (thankfully milder than the first) Boston winter.
• admitted that, to survive my third such winter, a light box and Vitamin D pills will be helpful tools.
• read nearly 300 books – a personal record. (Yes, I am fast. No, I don’t “speed read.” Yes, I spend a LOT of time reading.)
• lost a grandmother and a cousin, and grieved.
• flown to Texas three times to visit my family.
• become an aunt twice over, to Ryder and then to Annalynn.
• taken J to D.C., shown him the monuments and museums I love, and discovered some new places there with him.
• spent two wonderful long weekends (one frigid, one fall-ish) in New York City.
• drunk SO many cups of tea.
• taken countless lunchtime walks.
• filled up six and a half journals.
• overslept a LOT of mornings.
• had my soul fed, my heart uplifted and my intellect challenged at the Glen Workshop.
• gained about 10 pounds. (Which I’d like to lose in 2013.)
• attended my 10th high school reunion, and marveled at the ways my classmates and I have grown into ourselves since 2002.
• kept up a pen-and-paper correspondence with the lovely Jaclyn (who also hosted us in D.C.).
• driven to the wilds of Maine for a super-fun wedding.
• kept showing up for my day job, even when I did not feel like it.
• continued to work as a freelance for my beloved alma mater.
• taken on extra responsibilities at church.
• realized why church work is sometimes thankless and sometimes deeply rewarding.
• missed my family, and faraway friends, deeply.
• welcomed my sweet college roomie and her husband for a visit to Boston.
• paid down a LARGE percentage of the balance on my student loans.
• written 170-ish blog posts (and hit the milestone of 1,000 posts).
• tweeted probably more than was strictly necessary. (But it’s so much fun.)
• joined a networking group for bookish folks.
• celebrated my third Turkeypalooza.
• knitted 6 hats (4 adult, 2 baby), 4 baby sweaters, 2 pairs of booties, 2 cowls, 3 mini sweaters, 1 pair of leg warmers, 1 sunglasses case, 2 pairs of fingerless gloves, and 42 wee hats for smoothie bottles.
• fallen head over heels for Lark Rise to Candleford, finished watching Mary Tyler Moore, and continued my love affair with Castle.
• reviewed more than 40 books for Shelf Awareness.
• met a dozen or more online friends in person.
• become part of a book club.
• visited Vermont, Newport (R.I.) and western MA.
• found a question I keep asking over and over.
• celebrated my fourth wedding anniversary.
• relished a rain-soaked, hilarious, memorable 4th of July.
• soaked up all I could of the London Olympics.
• reflected on two years in Boston.
• struggled at times to make this life fit.
• talked about the future with J.
• fallen in love with a slew of new-to-me detectives, including Mary Russell, Tommy & Tuppence, Sarah Kelling, Chet and Bernie, Bess Crawford, and the Spellmans. (This has been a year for mysteries.)
• seen both The Lion King and The Fantasticks on Broadway.
• spent many Tuesday evenings sipping tea with girlfriends.
• wondered what is next.

I wrote a post like this last year, and it was so thought-provoking I decided to do it again. It’s amazing to look back over a year and see what’s happened, and what I have made happen.

What have you done, experienced, read, accomplished in 2012?

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My Favorite Books of 2012

I devour the “best of” book lists that abound this time of year, the critics and the reviewers and the book bloggers all gushing about books that blew them away, lavishing praise instead of cynicism and pleading, “Read this!”

It’s tough to winnow my favorites from the nearly 300 (!) books I read this year, but I did want to share the brightest gems with you. Not all these books were published in 2012, but I read them all (except Best Reread) for the first time in 2012.

Best Crime-Solving Couples: Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell, with their brilliant repartee, deductive genius and deep love for one another. And Agatha Christie’s duo Tommy and Tuppence, who are witty and sparkling and also rather good at solving mysteries.

Best Relatively Unknown Historical Novel: The Time in Between by Maria Duenas, with its brave protagonist Sira Quiroga, seamstress and spy in Morocco during the Spanish Civil War and the lead-up to World War II. Plenty of action, lush description, love and heartbreak and political tension. But it hasn’t been as widely hailed as I’d hoped. (Read it!)

Best Return to a Favorite Fictional Place: Joanne Harris took us back to the French village of Lansquenet (of Chocolat fame) in Peaches for Father Francis, and I loved every minute.

Best Reread: The Harry Potter series. It is almost impossible to overstate my love for these books. So I will simply beg you: Read them, if you haven’t already.

Most Delicious Memoir: My Berlin Kitchen by Luisa Weiss. A charming, yummy tale of Berlin and New York and Boston, of family and broken hearts and finding your way home again. (And cooking.) Made me want to be her best friend.

Most Haunting Contemporary Novel: The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D. by Nichole Bernier. I read this book in June, and I am still thinking about Elizabeth and her friend Kate, who inherits Elizabeth’s journals after her death and starts to wonder how well she really knew her friend. Powerful and thought-provoking.

Best Book on Faith: An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor. It has left me trying to determine, again and again, what is saving my life right now. (If the answer is “I don’t know,” I know I need to pay more attention.)

Best Poetry Collection: Thirst, by Mary Oliver. As I was reading this, I read most of the poems at least twice. “Messenger” has been resonating in my head for weeks.

Best Catnip for Anglophiles: Mrs Queen Takes the Train by William Kuhn, a wise, charming and often funny tale of Queen Elizabeth going on a quite unusual journey.

Best Peek Into Someone Else’s Letters: The wise, keenly observant and often self-deprecating letters of E.B. White.

Best Biography of a Strong-Willed Woman: Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child by Bob Spitz. Julia was larger than life, literally and figuratively, and Spitz’s portrait of her is fascinating.

Best Classic I Can’t Believe I Never Read Before: Emma by Jane Austen. I’d seen the film, but it pales in comparison to the wit and brilliance of the novel. I wasn’t sure I would like Emma herself, but I ended up loving her.

Best Book My Husband Stole Before I Even Read It: After Mandela by Douglas Foster. A multi-layered, absorbing, often unsettling look at post-apartheid life in South Africa.

Coziest Fictional Village: Fairacre. (I discovered Miss Read long ago, but I read 16 of her Fairacre books this year. Obsessed? Maybe a little.)

Best Book Written for Teenagers: The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt, which made me laugh and cry and remember how difficult and wonderful life can be when you’re 14.

Craziest Fictional Family: Undoubtedly the Spellmans, Lisa Lutz’s family of private eyes who spend most of their spare time (and some of their on-the-job time) spying on each other.

Your turn. What are your favorite books from this year?

(I’m signing off for the next week to spend some time with my family. Merry Christmas!)

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